Rejected?

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I've never had one rejected!

The blurb is there about dialog, but I don't see an issue.

I made no secret of being married. My rings were very prominent and my husband visited the office a few times and attended a few company events. Still, one of the peacocks was not quite getting the hint and played the chase the tail game with me being the tail. He didn't seem to know what ‘No!’ meant and I was starting to get annoyed. It was almost daily that he made some kind of a pass.​

That paragraph had a double quote around No, but that wouldn't kill a whole submission, would it?

 

[TheLobster]

As far as I know, there is no consistent standard for punctuating literal words-as-objects within a sentence.

For a short word like no, I'd just leave it completely unquoted, exactly like in this very sentence. Otherwise, apostrophes over quotes seem like a sensible choice (or vice versa if you're writing in British).

Are you sure this specific passage was the reason for rejection? Is your other dialogue formatted correctly?

(Oh, and by the way: "chase-the-tail" should be hyphenated there).

 

[iwatchus]

I think it might. As with everyone else, I am completely guessing as to the story moderation process. Laurel seems to have a thing about dialog formatting. I don't think she reads everything, but if she notices screwed up dialog, she will bounce. She could have seen the quotes inappropriately used and just responded with the dialog rejection.

 

[TheLobster]

Laurel dropping a rejection hammer over her pet peeve is definitely hit or miss, though. There’s a ton of stories, even recent ones, that incorrectly capitalize their speech tags; it hints that whatever automated filter she uses is very rudimentary.

Which honestly might be the OP’s problem. The script sees “ preceded by lone space and no other punctuation (or paragraph break) and flags it.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Single or double quotes round a word should be fine. I'd suspect some wider formatting issue like accents being rendered as code including quote marks.

Failing that, resubmit saying you've checked the punctuation and it seems OK. Happy to have a quick look (then you can also say a beta reader cleared it).

 

[NotWise]

I think double quotes around "No!" are correct.

Did Laurel's comment specify that paragraph as a problem?

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

^^ Do they ever specify?

 

[NotWise]

^^ Do they ever specify?

Not that I'm aware of.

 

[TheLobster]

I took a few minutes to skim through a few of OP’s published stories and I found bits like these:

"Yes, fine' I replied nervously, adding 'As long as my friend can come with us."

'Sounds good" I replied.

"Hi, I'm Heidi" she said as she turned around, held her long blonde hair aside and added, "unzip me?"

As she pulled her dress on, she turned her back to me and in a reverse of just a short time earlier, said "Zip Me!"

"Y-y-yess" he stammered.

"So, I intimidate you"?

While readable, they are all punctuated incorrectly. But they are also isolated instances among large swaths of properly delineated dialogue.

I’d guess OP was simply unlucky and Laurel finally stumbled upon one of their infrequent mistakes.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I took a few minutes to skim through a few of OP’s published stories and I found bits like these:






While readable, they are all punctuated incorrectly. But they are also isolated instances among large swaths of properly delineated dialogue.

I’d guess OP was simply unlucky and Laurel finally stumbled upon one of their infrequent mistakes.

Some of those are vision issues and no matter how many times I go over them I can't always see ' vs ", double letters, l, i or 1

I've had to correct this post a few times already. My hands and eyes haven't been well coordinated in quite a while.

 

[TheLobster]

Some of those are vision issues and no matter how many times I go over them I can't always see ' vs ", double letters, l, i or 1

Try switching your editor to a monospace font, particularly one that’s designed specifically for code, like Consolas or Hack. They are deliberately crafted to distinguish characters which are easy to confuse, like 0 and O, l and | and i, ‘ and ` and so on.

Simply increasing the text height may help as well.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I use Libre Office with Liberation Sans 14 pt.

It's generally clean and easy to read, but I guess I can try others.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Published!! 7-1

What does Courtney's mother tell her?

 

[Gamblnluck]

^^ Do they ever specify?

There is usually enough of a hint to identify the problem. I don't think that passage was the reason. What did the actual rejection say?

I've had three stories sent back and each time the problem was clearly identified. Twice I'd hinted at something that happened when the person was underage. Once that there was not even a hint of pleasure.

 

[NotWise]

Published!! 7-1

What does Courtney's mother tell her?

I don't know. Who is Courtney? What does her mother tell her?

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Maybe Mom should have kept her mouth shut. Oh well, new bottom dweller.

 

[TheRedLantern]

Published!! 7-1

What does Courtney's mother tell her?

Can you give us a high level overview of what you had to change to overcome the issue that led to the original draft being rejected?

This thread could pop up in someone's search results in the future and it might be nice for them to know what they should be looking at to resolve their own rejection.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Can you give us a high level overview of what you had to change to overcome the issue that led to the original draft being rejected?

This thread could pop up in someone's search results in the future and it might be nice for them to know what they should be looking at to resolve their own rejection.

Three or four instances of double quotes instead of single, a hanging quote here and there. Nothing really major.

 

[WittyUserName]

I've never had one rejected!

The blurb is there about dialog, but I don't see an issue.

I made no secret of being married. My rings were very prominent and my husband visited the office a few times and attended a few company events. Still, one of the peacocks was not quite getting the hint and played the chase the tail game with me being the tail. He didn't seem to know what ‘No!’ meant and I was starting to get annoyed. It was almost daily that he made some kind of a pass.​

That paragraph had a double quote around No, but that wouldn't kill a whole submission, would it?

As far as I'm aware, the rule is that you use single quotations(') only if it's a quote within a quote. Ex. "When I say 'no,' it means 'no!'" So yours would be "No!" I think? And that one thing got your story sent back? Weird. I had one sent back recently that asked me to remove any real names when there weren't any. When I resubmitted explaining I didn't use any real names, it was accepted. I've seen a lot of stories with a ton of errors get through, so this is really surprising.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

^^^ The no above wasn't spoken. It was an internal thought.

 

[WittyUserName]

^^^ The no above wasn't spoken. It was an internal thought.

Right, so shouldn't it be "No!" or am I wrong about that? I shouldn't be a writer, I was a math guy in school.

 

[NotWise]

Right, so shouldn't it be "No!" or am I wrong about that? I shouldn't be a writer, I was a math guy in school.

That is my understanding.

 

[WittyUserName]

^^^ The no above wasn't spoken. It was an internal thought.

The internet wasn't very helpful. It mentioned Italics for something like this. Although, I think it might be a style choice, where as long as you're consistent it's okay?

 

[NuclearFairy]

The internet wasn't very helpful. It mentioned Italics for something like this. Although, I think it might be a style choice, where as long as you're consistent it's okay?

There are several ways to do internal thoughts, with italics being the most common and single quotes being the second most common. Double quotes do get used for internal thoughts, but they're the most confusing method out there.

 

[NotWise]

There are several ways to do internal thoughts, with italics being the most common and single quotes being the second most common. Double quotes do get used for internal thoughts, but they're the most confusing method out there.

I read most of the story in question. The line isn't an internal thought. It's part of the first person narrative. That's fairly clear in the snippet in the OP.